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Sporting my Tadworth green top and a pair of bright red innov8 boots I felt appropriately attired for the Holly Run. I did the Holly Run for the first time last year and due to late delivery of cross country footwear I entered running on a pair of well-worn road shoes. I was soon to discover this was like racing on slick tyres in the wet (I use to race motorbikes so have that T-shirt too)

The Holly Run is set in Reigate’s Priory park with several shorter runs earlier in the day for juniors ending in the senior men & women event. The men cover a 6 mile course (three 2 mile laps) including up and down the ridge, steep and slippery up and steeper and slipperier coming down, women only have to complete two laps.

My first attempt last year with treadless trainers gave the marshalls a few laughs. This year with a good grip I had no excuse for taking the hills at a cautious pace and by the third lap I struggled to maintain a slow jog going up. On the upside I had improved my time from last year by 6 minutes and I was the first Tadworth runner home both last year and this year, you can guess why!

So hopefully we can have a few more holly green shirts running next year, Happy New Year!

Tadworth A.C. convincingly won the 2015 Three Molehills team race, a 3 leg
relay based at Denbies Wine Estate, Dorking, taking in Box Hill, Norbury
Park and Ranmore Common. In blustery conditions the team of John Melbourne, Dave Williamson and Paul O’Callaghan (above) completed the 15-mile course in a time
of 1 hour 30 minutes 32 seconds, nearly 12 minutes ahead of Herne Hill
Harriers in second place (1:42:19) with South London Harriers third
(1:42:59). 71 teams took part.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust, one of the Mayor of Epsom’s nominated charities, benefited from a cheque for £2256 presented by Tadworth Athletic Club at Epsom Town Hall on 23rd March. The money was raised from proceeds of the Tadworth 10 race held in January on Epsom Downs together with individual donations from runners at the event.

The final race of this year’s Surrey Road League saw us back at Wimbledon Park for this well organised 5K that starts and finishes on Wimbledon Park track.

The course is just over 1 lap of the track and then out of the Park, past the All England Tennis Club and up the only hill on the course, which feels very steep when you are flat out. This then drops back down until about 3.5K and then goes back into the Park, running the last 300 metres on the track. (Runners and supporters pictured above at the Wimbledon Track)

Peter Mills ran a good race to be TAC’s first finisher and 20th overall. Dave Williamson was next in 38th position. Peter Rand made up the scoring team, also winning the M60 Surrey 5K Championship.

It was tough getting a Ladies team out due to injuries and holidays, but new member Stephanie Darvill stepped in at the last minute to be the first TAC lady home. Sarah Bell was next finishing over 2 minutes quicker than last year with Nanda Todd making up the scoring team.

The Men finished 6th in the league which was down on previous years, but some of the bigger clubs have upped their game slightly. The Ladies came a very respectable 15th out of 31 teams which was a great effort.

On an individual basis, Paul O’Callaghan was 2nd senior with Peter Rand taking 2nd in the M60s and Dave Williamson was 3rd in the M40s.

After putting a lot of thought into whether I was going to do this race I made the final decision on the Tuesday evening and started the Lager Diet carb depletion.

I wanted to experiment with this for later in the year when I am doing the Beachy Head Marathon and this seemed to be the perfect time to try it as I wasn’t in the best of form and felt I had nothing to lose.

The diet involved drinking 2 pints of Lager on the Tuesday evening and then going for a 9 mile run, repeating this on Wednesday and again at Thursday lunch time.

During this time I could only eat chicken, fish and eggs.

By the end of the last run on Thursday I was on my knees and only managed to do 8.2 miles. As soon as I finished the run I could start loading which was tough on the Thursday as I did not feel well, but more than made up for it on the Friday and Saturday.

The race went fairly much as I thought, as I went through halfway in 1.19ish, but was starting to get very tired due to the fact I had not run more than 13 miles for about 8 weeks after catching the flu in late February.

The Mob Match with Collingwood at Roundshaw Downs proved a success with special praise for the vegetarian curry option. Whether or not peas were part of the recipe had proved a hot topic in advance of the day however fortunately chef saw sense and excluded this item from the menu. In the clubhouse both teams waited on tenterhooks for the result after a highly competitive race and Tadworth claimed victory with a score of 203 vs. 233. After several members had removed shoes and socks and an abacus had been sought, the consensus was that it was best not to try too hard to work out the scoring and just be content with the victory.